Jumper (3 page)

She put the cowl aside, made a dinner of grilled cheese sandwich and spinach salad, and decided, quite out of character, to turn on some music. She liked silence mostly. Or thought she
had
liked silence, but now she liked music. What sort did she like? Classic rock, she decided, and found a Pandora station to fit.

The knock at the door startled her. Trish hadn’t said she was coming over and she knew not to show up unexpectedly. Maddie peeked through the spy hole in the door. Oliver, in a red flannel shirt and a gray duster, grinned at her. She drew in a breath and cautiously opened the door.

“Ah,” he said, striding into her living room, “Strawberry Fields Forever. That was my G’maw’s favorite Beatles song. G’paw liked Eleanor Rigby. Edgier, he said.”

Maddie knew she was staring and forced her gaze away. Oliver was Copper Penny again. She had the oddest thought: that he looked that way because she’d
unraveled
bearded Oliver. Just as she’d unraveled the shooters on the street.

“I’m gonna,” he said, and tilted his head toward the bathroom.

As soon as the door shut, Maddie grabbed her peacock blue yarn and needles. She worked fast but carefully, thinking, This is crazy. Oliver will walk back into the room the same as when he left it. I’m losing my mind.

Oliver returned, running a hand through his copper penny hair. He slipped off the black sweatshirt with a Los Angeles Kings hockey logo on the front. His green-and-gray striped t-shirt fit snuggly across his broad shoulders. Maddie glanced quickly at her own shirt. It was the same one she’d had on all day. At least she thought it was. Yes, it was. Definitely.

He settled beside her on the couch. “Do apartments come up for rent here often? I can’t believe all the space you have.”

Her apartment was tiny. It was all she could afford on a barista’s pay. Trish had said if you stood in the middle of the bedroom you could touch both walls with your fingertips. Her place wasn’t that small, but no one would say she had a lot of space.

She looked down again and fiddled with the strand of yarn running from her needles to the ball. The cowl was finished. Without looking up, she reached for the scissors and cut it loose from what little was left of the yarn ball.

Oliver laid his arm over her shoulder and pulled her toward him. Maddie stiffened. She felt him shift his weight.

“Oh, shit. Look at the time. We’re supposed to meet everyone for karaoke.”

He stood and held out his hand to help her up. She looked around her apartment, saw how spacious it was, the good quality of the furniture and art on the walls, her extensive hardback book collection. Those years in school getting her MBA had paid off. She hadn’t thought she’d like finance when the job was first offered to her, but it turned out she had a flair for it and loved the work.

They stepped out into the night—not into the seaside town where she’d lived that morning, but into a bright and sparkling Manhattan. A smile curved her lips. Oliver slipped an arm over her shoulders again. She snuggled close to his strong, hard body, breathing in his familiar scent.

A Note from the Author

Thank you for reading Jumper. I hope you enjoyed it. You might also like
Shadowline Drift
, a novel set in the Amazon where little is what it seems to be. You can check it out here:
goo.gl/ehPQRc
. It’s available as an ebook, paperback, and audiobook.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Meg Xuemei, Randy Jackson, Dan McNeil, and Jay Howard, wonderful writers all, for their help in shaping this story.

Much love to Chris, Larkin, and Colin Razevich who make my world perfect.

About the Author

Alexes Razevich writes speculative fiction. She attended California State University San Francisco where she earned a degree in Creative Writing. After a successful career on the fringe of the electronics industry, including stints as Director of Marketing for a major trade show management company and as an editor for Electronic Engineering Times, she returned to her first love — fiction. She lives in Southern California with her husband. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found playing hockey or traveling somewhere she hasn’t been before.

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